Blights - powdery mildew on pumpkin plants

This summer a few pumpkin plants seeded themselves in my garden, from seeds in the compost I had added. I happily let a few grow to see what happened. They grew so well that I felt like I was watching a B movie, Revenge of the Monster Plants, as they took over the garden - their curling tendrils grasping onto everything.

I thought all was well, but I am the type to learn by doing (and so I soon learned). In February, a few dusty spots appeared on them, which spread rapidly. Soon, many of the formerly healthy leaves were blighted by the dusty stuff.

I looked it up in my trusty gardening book (Xanthe White's Organic Vegetable Gardening). "Powdery mildew" which is best prevented rather than treating. If I had kept the plants consistently well watered, and sprayed the leaves all along with water with a bit of dish soap the mold would have had a harder time staying. (And knowing how much it spreads, I would have reacted far more quickly at the first spots.)

As it was, the mildew on the leaves got so bad I had to spray them all over with copper spray, both sides (Bordeux mixture would have been better, see recipe below). It was a lot of work, and the leaves still didn't look great, so I ended up destroying much of the plants trying to remove it. We did get a few large pumpkins out of it, but I had alot of sadness destroying the infected plants, along with the many flowers that all would have become pumpkins.

Boo hooo. Next year I will know to keep the leaves clear by watering the plants very well so they stay strong, and spraying with water and a bit of dish soap all along (or even Bordeaux mixture fortnightly) - but mostly by staying observant.

(I am also going to plant them in a devoted pumpkin monster plant area. Those things spread like crazy, tangling up all the other plants, they get damaged as you try to free them.)


Excerpt from Xanthe White's Organic Vegetable Gardening book:

"Powdery Mildew

"Cucumbers, courgettes, pumpkins and beans are particularly susceptible to this common garden affliction. Powdery mildew thrives in the hot dry of late summer so water regularly and consistently. If you are hit, strike back with a spray of old dishwashing water or detergent mixed with water. If this fails, try baking soda dissolved in water at a ratio of half a teaspoon to one litre. Treat more serious cases with Bordeaux mixture or flowers of sulphur. Act swiftly and remove as much infected material as possible before the fungus spreads." -Xanthe White


Recipe (from her book as well):

"Bordeaux mixture

"Bordeaux mixture can be bought pre-mixed or made at home quite easily. It is the organic gardener's best defence against fungal disease, effective against everything from potato blight to powdery mildew, but should, as with all chemicals, natural or otherwise, be used with caution. It can damage soft or new growth so using the appropriate dilution is important.

"100 g copper sulphate dissolved in 1 litre of hot water

"150 g hydrated lime dissolved in 1 litre of cold water

"Add the copper sulphate solution slowly to the lime solution, stirring continuously. Dilute this mixture with a further 10 litres of cold water and use while fresh. Dilute to 10 parts further if you are using on tender young growth. If used as a preventative spray fortnightly; otherwise us as infection requires. Do not store in a metal container."

-Xanthe White

Xanthe White's Organic Vegetable Gardening book (NZ)

I first saw this book reviewed in Good magazine. I really wanted it but hadn't mentioned it to my husband. He surprised me with it as a gift for my birthday! It must have been featured as a new book on the shelves - but still, how's that for connection?

I am sharing Xanthe White's Organic Vegetable Gardening book (NZ) as I've been using it for a year now - and it really is an awesome book, long term. At first I loved tips such as, if there is a place in your garden, perhaps even in cracks where you are always pulling up weeds, why not use that place to plant something you would like instead, as it obviously is a good place to grow something? Marigolds to discourage pests, the importance of mulching and not leaving soil naked, especially the older your plants get (nature keeps soil covered), not using plastic weed mat (because it would be like wrapping clingwrap over your skin) also come to mind.

Xanthe documented her garden for 1 year (it's a month by month guide), planning and building it at the beginning - 4 square brick raised garden beds with gravel between (discourages snails from walking on it, and creates a clean area to work from). She wanted to have nasturtiums growing along the edges of the paths as her mother did. I still want to put gravel between my raised beds!

There are many great ideas and thoughts about gardening in the book, but also a guide for each vegetable, and guides for various pest control issues and so on. I always refer to it. Just yesterday I discovered the idea of keeping seedlings safe from pests by placing plastic milk or drink bottles with the bottom cut off over them like a mini greenhouse. (Very important, as I have now found.) Also full of lovely rich and earthy gardening photos.

August Garden

Following a tip from Xanthe White's organic gardening book, I cut off the main head of broccoli from the plant, and waited to see if side heads would grow. I didn't totally believe it, but look!


After a great deal I got from a farmer on TradeMe (he has several horses and has been composting horse manure with sawdust, and posted a trailer load on TradeMe for $20), this former soggy clay filled area is starting to look like a garden. (I also sprinkled alot of gypsum all over as well, on advice, as apparently it breaks up clay.) Going to plant potatoes.


Looking pretty good now, but that's because it's drier. The slugs were getting the best of these plants as I wasn't as vigilant as I could have been at night raids, to remove them. The garden was formerly far too wet - in that climate the plants did not do well.


Cool, magical surprise this morning. A HUGE MUSHROOM appeared like magic in the midst of the garden.

Gardening fail

When I first started my garden, I just had to throw all the plants in to get started. The truth is, I am not just gardening, I am gardening, and working, and looking after children so I am sometimes burnt out and tired to learn this new thing. But when I do garden, and become connected to it, I feel really great. Long and short is - I spaced all the plants terribly, especially the carrots. I had forgotten to thin them out, and even to space the seedlings out - and they have grown into each other mangled and suffocated. FAIL!

I won't give up though - even if I have to learn by doing it - that first planting was the get started time - and I know EXACTLY how I will do it next time.

Note added April 2012 - besides the importance of thinning - I just read in my favourite gardening book (Xanthe White's Organic Vegetable Gardening):

"Carrots take time to really master, so don't give up if your first sowing does not succeed."

"Carrots will grow even in a heavy clay soil but improving the soil is the key to the perfect crop. The ideal soil is light and sandy with well-decayed organic matter that has been lightly limed. This allows the carrots to grow directly and deeply. Fresh composts or stony soils can cause the carrots to become deformed." - Xanthe White

Snail or no snail

Slugs! Snails!

With gardening and becoming closer to the land, there are more physically intense experiences, some good, some not so pleasant.
Pleasant: smelling fragrant basil waft when I am in the garden at night.
Not pleasant: getting rid of slimy slugs and snails!

I had been noticing that all my lovely perfect seedlings have been getting riddled with holes. I couldn't see any insects eating them. Totally new to gardening in NZ - I am reading Xanthe White's organic vegetable gardening book. She had said to go on night raids, and that in general with a garden and pests, "observation was key". I had planted the seedlings, but then just ignored them. Tonight after it was quiet and everyone was in bed, I grabbed a flashlight and and a bucket and went to have a look.

THEY WERE EATING MY GARDEN! There were many, many snails of all sizes locomoting around and clinging to leaves, and small slimy slugs. I grabbed them with my bare hand and put them in my bucket, observing where they were making short work of all my seedlings, in particular the lettuces. I think I've made a giant leap here, and that perhaps if I take measures I may actually have vegetables. In the past when I have experimented with growing, in pots, the pests totalled whatever I was growing. In NZ, it is bountiful, but bountiful in pests as well! Xanthe White had made brick beds, and had gravel in between her raised gardens to discourage locomoting of slimers. I am definitely going to put gravel in between my garden beds, in the areas that I can. I can even add some salt.

But then a dramatic event occurred.

It was an ethical dilemma. Xanthe had said although it was a queazy matter, those "suckers could do with some population control once in a while!" Being city suburb born, and we didn't have snails persay, I was concerned about killing something that I've seen illustrated in children's books as woodland creatures along with fairies and toadstools. I pictured painting the mural I plan to paint in my children's bedroom, and how unable I would be to paint a snail's magic if I killed them. I had seen them this night, stretching slowly and magically up - their delicate antennas stretching delicately out. I heated up boiling water, deciding to be a farmer. Then I changed my mind easily, and decided to throw them into the inedible part of our garden (yard), into the bushes. I threw them all into the bushes, stopping to wonder why I felt less caring towards the slimy slugs that had no shells. I knew that the shell was just one more adaptation to protect it...they were basically cuter. I returned to the garden to see if more slugs or snails were reeling up after I had left. I found a small black slug creating holes in a lettuce leaf. My caring turned to repulsion as my inner self regarded it as an unwanted, negative creature. And then I realized what the difference would have been, for earlier people, that resolved the ethical dilemma. They would have been eating your only food. It's killed or be killed, babies.

I plucked the black offensive creature off the leaf, dropped it into the bucket, and put the kettle back on to boil...